How to work/study at home
In March-April 2020, during the Covid-19 quarantine, I had to study at home for weeks in a row. It forced me to develop methods to be more efficient and stay motivated. Here’s what I learned:
Planning.
- Set a schedule
I thrive in organized chaos. I like to set a to-do-list at the beginning of my day, but that’s the only constraint I give myself; I am free to arrange my day however I want as long as I fulfill those tasks. Turns out, when on weekends, it works quite well because it gives my day a purpose while leaving leeway and not causing too much stress. However, it is not sustainable on the long-term; I started lacking motivation and eerily scrolling through Instagram or doing anything else but my required tasks. This is probably because the element of pressure is lacking: I have no incentive to complete the work since nobody knows when this quarantine is going to end, and nobody will judge me for not completing my work on time! Furthermore, the feeling that I have infinite time for those tasks only makes me less motivated to do them.
A solution is minutious scheduling. I set a timetable, minute-by-minute, for each ‘mission’. Inevitably, I am victim of the planning fallacy, but it still keeps me motivated.
2. Pomodoro
Complementary to the previous moint is the Pomodoro method: work 20mn, rest 5mn, restart and take a longer break after 1h. For some tasks (like writing a report), it was refreshing and super motivating; I noticed I was 10x more efficient wih the pressure of time! However, for some subjects that require more intensive thinking, or for which I need to be in a state of flow (coding a webpage), stopping every 20mn would just disrupt my train of thoughts. So I like to twitch the Pomodoro method; for some tasks I respect the 20mn breakdown, otherwise I just try to take a pause everytime I finish a mini-step of my project. Just adapt the method to your needs: every task requires a different way of thinking, and an adapted methodology should be applied.
Trick your brain!
3. Change rooms
After one week, I started feeling like I was unproductive. My hypothesis was that being in front of the same screen (whether it’s for working or playing or socializing) and sitting on the same chair the whole day tricks my brain into thinking I was doing the same thing all along. When at uni, there’s a ritual everytime we change subject: we pack our belongings, taks a short break and move to a new room. I now understand this break helped me psychologically process the end of the previous task, and the beginning of a new one. So I tried to reproduce this at home, changing room everytime I changed task. And it worked! I was less distracted and more efficient.
4. Dress professionally
Or do makeup. Just like the previous point, it is a psychological trick. Dressing in pyjamas all day may leave you feel unproductive, or worse, make you lazier as you unconsciously are in a “weekend” state of mind. For makeup, it just an opportunity to take care of yourself and feel more confident.
Moral and health
5. Yoga and Pilates
One advantage of working at home is that nobody will judge you for taking a pause every 30mn to stretch, massage your legs or do a quick yoga session. I am still not doing it enough, but it is important to stretch often to avoid backaches and neck pain (I actually feel like my muscles are more often sor when I am working from home, maybe because I have a tendency to sloutch?).
